How One Republic's 'Counting Stars' Put Santorini's Black Rock Studios On The Map

Thirteen years ago, music producer and engineer Kostas Kalimeris opened a recording studio in Santorini. He recalls how One Republic helped put Black Rock Studios on the map.

Kalimeris will never forget Black Rock’s first ever client. Before the Santorini-based luxury villa and recording studio had even been built, Kevin Shirley – a South African music producer, engineer and mixer for bands including Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden – booked it out for a month.

“I found him on Facebook and sent him a message,” Kalimeris reflects, smiling. 

“I told him I was building a studio in Santorini. He asked me to send some photos, and I told him I didn’t have any yet – just drawings and plans. He said, ‘Okay, just send me the plans’. I sent him the plans and he said, ‘Okay, book me in for one month for next July; I’m gonna come over with guitar player and artist, Joe Bonamassa’. 

"It was the first booking ever, and we were literally doing the last finishes at the time they arrived at the studio. That’s the reason Joe Bonamassa named the album Black Rock, because it was the first album ever recorded in the studio.”

Black Rock is part recording studio, part luxury villa, and its combination of world class recording technology nestled within idyllic surroundings and Instagram-worthy scenery have made it a favourite studio for artists as diverse as Justin Bieber, Björk, Bring Me The Horizon, Skrillex and One Republic – the latter which used the studio to record tracks for the band’s third studio album, Native. 

This included one of the band's most successful singles, Counting Stars, which lead singer Ryan Tedder originally started writing for Beyoncé – later deciding that it didn’t sound like a song she would record. He finished the song in Santorini. Tedder said the band’s time at Black Rock was “by far the best studio experience of our lives”.

“Counting Stars was the first big hit recorded at the studio,” nods Kalimeris. “They were trying to come here for two years, but their plans kept changing. So finally, they came in 2013 and they recorded one of their best hits, Counting Stars and three or four more songs for Native. 

"Counting Stars was a huge success and they did the whole production in the studio. Since then, we’ve stayed connected and they’re trying to find time to come back again for another session. Ryan Tedder is phenomenal; he is such a good producer, plus he’s a great guy. 

"He spread the word about Black Rock everywhere. He’s said great things about the studio. Of course the sound and tech spec is very important for pop artists, but I think the vibe and the energy of the place is the most important,” he considers. 

“Especially if you come to write songs, because we have a lot of clients coming for songwriting sessions as well. Sometimes, we'll have bands or artists coming with not even one song in their pocket, and they’ll spend two weeks before the recording just songwriting, and then when they finish the songwriting, then they start the recording process.”

Kalimeris splits his time between his studio in Athens and Black Rock, and said that there’s one key difference when working with Greek and international artists that he’s noticed:

“In pop music, the writing process is totally different here. In Greece, there is no co-writing, the only co-writers are the lyricist and the composer. In pop music with international artists, you can sometimes have up to 10 or 11 co-writers – this process is almost unknown in the Greek market. 

"The problem in Greece – and maybe this is a problem for all Mediterranean countries – is that they pay more attention to the vocal performance of the lyrics rather than the production,” he explains. “Labels are always keen to spend less and less, but sometimes the bigger artists do have the power to ask for a bigger budget or for a great producer, but there are only a few that are at this level.”

It had been a long time dream of Kalimeris’ to open a studio in Greece, and he spent years looking for the right island. When he visited Santorini, he knew he’d found the place.

“The idea was to find a really nice location, because for me that’s the most important thing for somebody if they’re going to travel all the way from London, Paris or L.A. We were really lucky to find this amazing place, as it’s a studio and a villa with five bedrooms, which is good for bands. 

"We built the studio to international standards, with an SSL desk, Genelec monitoring, and we had an acoustic designer come in. These days producers and mixers have their own studios or room at home, so they’re really used to their room sound and speakers, but when they come here, they love the sound of the studio,” he smiles.

A big part of helping visiting producers and engineers feel at home are the studio’s main Genelec 1035, 8040 and 8050 monitors. Kalimeris visited various studios to listen to their systems before making his decision, and when visiting a studio in Paris, was impressed with the 1035s they had.

“I had a really good memory from that room; I chose the 1035s because they were the best speakers, in my opinion. We built the studio acoustics around these speakers – that's why the room sounds so good. 

"We do a lot of songwriting camps, and sometimes we'll have 25 people split into eight songwriting teams, so we need a lot of a lot of nearfield speakers set up in different rooms for the songwriters. 

"We chose the 8040s and 8050s for that because of their low end, because all the pop producers love the low end. Plus, we found the speakers with the best low end according to their size, because we couldn't install big speakers in the small writing rooms. Everyone's really happy, and we have worked with these Genelecs for 13 years now.

“To me, they sound very realistic to my ears. When talking about the big speakers, the most important thing is not to sound chaotic, because there are some speakers where the sound is not realistic. The big Genelec 1035s sound very balanced and very realistic – even if you're mixing at a low level, it sounds great.”